I WAS ADDICTED, SAYS LAWYER

A Napier jury is expected to decide today whether Philip Jensen was a
lawyer with a cannabis addiction or a lawyer who planned to make money
by selling the drug.

Jensen's defence lawyer said in his closing speech yesterday this was
what the jury should consider when it retires after Judge David
Saunders sums up the case in Napier District Court this morning.

Jensen has pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis but denies a charge
of possession of cannabis for supply.

His lawyer, Russell Fairbrother, told the jury there was not one
"skerrick of evidence" showing Jensen had indulged in illegal activity
in respect of the possession charge.

At issue in the trial were five bags of cannabis, each of about 28
grams, found during a police search of Jensen's property on September
1 last year.

Jensen said the bags were given to him by a friend, but prosecutor
Denys Barry said the jury might think it incredible a criminal lawyer
would keep five deal-sized bags of cannabis together, knowing what
that would look like to police.

Yesterday, Jensen told the court he smoked one or two joints a day
during working weeks but on weekends smoked one joint after the other
from when he got up till 10pm to 11pm.

Clinical psychologist Andrew Raven, who Jensen referred himself to
three days after his arrest, said Jensen told him he smoked about two
cannabis joints most mornings, one at lunchtime and up to four at night.

Mr Raven said Jensen was a "driven man" who was dependent on cannabis
and initially thought the drug was beneficial to him.

Mr Fairbrother said Jensen was a man of integrity who was at a
crossroads in his life. "His future is effectively in your hands," Mr
Fairbrother said.

Police had not suggested any financial transactions involving drugs,
"in spite of searching his house and everything about his life," Mr
Fairbrother said.

In evidence, Jensen said he was introduced to cannabis as an
18-year-old at Massey University in 1975. His initial university
career did not last long and he worked at Whakatu meatworks for eight
years before going to Auckland and Otago to study law.

By this time cannabis had "struck a chord with me . . . it became my
drug of choice - I went right off alcohol.

"I was addicted to it," Jensen said.

He rose quickly in defence criminal law circles to take on serious
crime cases, he said. His job meant he could be called to work at any
time of the day or night.

Two of his marriages failed and he said he used cannabis habitually to
relieve stress. "I'd smoke till I fell asleep."

Jensen said he was a member of a movement that aimed to decriminalise
cannabis but kept secret, "as I was able to", his use of the drug.

Three days before police searched his property, 11 of 17 people
arrested in police raids in Hawke's Bay for alleged serious drug
offending were his clients.

Jensen said he panicked and took the bags of cannabis from his shed
and put them in his car alongside a bigger bag of cannabis he said he
grew at Te Pohue.

Jensen said he did not buy cannabis but was given it by
friends.

He supplied cannabis to his 20-year-old daughter when she told him she
was having difficulty paying for it.

Dealing in cannabis was now mostly in the hands of criminal gangs and
Jensen said he did not approve of criminal gangs.